Great Fire of London (1666)

The Great Fire of London began shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September 1666 at Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane and burned until 5 September, although some fires smouldered for weeks. It destroyed an estimated 13,200-13,500 houses, 86 or 87 parish churches, 44 livery company halls and the medieval St Paul's Cathedral. It is a landmark in the history of building and roofing regulation.

Why it spread

London was densely built of timber, with overhanging upper storeys and many cheap roofs. Building in wood and roofing in thatch had been prohibited for centuries, notably after a major fire in 1212, but the rules were widely ignored because the materials were cheap. Wind-blown sparks and burning flakes landed on thatched roofs and set them alight, and wooden gutters also caught fire, so the blaze jumped from roof to roof.

The rebuilding rules

Parliament passed the Rebuilding of London Act 1666, which received royal assent on 8 February 1667. Among its provisions:

• wood was banned from the exterior of buildings;
• brick and stone were preferred as building materials;
• jetties and similar overhangs were banned;
• the cost of building materials and workers' wages was regulated;
• a duty on coal helped fund civic rebuilding.

A separate Fire of London Disputes Act set up a court to settle disputes over buildings destroyed by the fire. Further regulations followed in 1667 and in a second rebuilding act of 1670.

Effect on roofs

Rebuilding favoured brick and stone over timber, which made the new city far less vulnerable to fire spreading from building to building. The fire had shown how exposed thatch and wooden gutters were to wind-blown sparks, and the act is widely treated as a landmark in fire-safety building regulation.

Rebuilding

Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke, John Evelyn and others proposed new street plans that were never adopted. Wren designed about 51 new churches, the new St Paul's Cathedral with its great dome, and, with Hooke, the Monument to the fire, built 1671-1676.